Home
A failed musician, Tony Vicar saves a car accident victim and suddenly rockets from complete unknown to a legend in mere months in Vince R. Ditrich's dark farce, The Liquor Vicar (Dundurn $18.99). When he attracts the attention of a siren who tries to separate him from his girlfriend, Tony is faced with the consequences of his life-long dream of celebrity and the unforeseen dangers to his life, and love, that it brings.
In the sequel, The Vicar’s Knickers (Dundurn $19.99) Tony Vicar is still famous. He still lives in Tyee Lagoon. His girlfriend Jacquie is still with him. Only now, he has turned his attention to renovating an old hotel he has inherited and converting the shabby beer parlour into a lavish pub that he names -- wait for it -- the Vicar's Knickers. There are unforeseen challenges, like the gossip columnist, Richard X. Dick intent on undermining Vicars. And then a surprise is left on Vicar's doorstep one night.
Vince R. Ditrich is the drummer and manager of the band Spirit of the West. He has earned more than a dozen gold and platinum albums, and been enshrined in several Halls of Fame. He lives on Vancouver Island.
BOOKS:
The Liquor Vicar (Dundurn, 2021) $18.99 9781459747258
The Vicar’s Knickers (Dundurn, 2022) $19.99 97814597472289
[BCBW 2022]
*
REVIEW
By Alexander Varty
Romp, the nearest dictionary at hand informs me, is “a song, play, etc. that is lively, energetic, and lighthearted.” It can also be “a playful and lighthearted journey or excursion,” as well as “an easy victory.”
By any of those definitions, Vince R. Ditrich’s debut novel, The Liquor Vicar, is indeed a romp. It’s comical, engrossing, and even uplifting—but, dear reader, it does not open well.
After a brief prologue, we’re immediately introduced to the outer persona and inner thoughts of the novel’s namesake and protagonist, Tony Vicar, and he is not in a good mood. In fact, he’s seething. A faded rock ’n’ roll guitarist who’s been reduced to deejaying in run-down Vancouver Island bars, he’s currently sound-tracking the wedding of a “meathead” at “the world’s oldest Eagles Hall.” He’s also sucking back beer at an alarming rate, washing it down with slugs of emergency Scotch and slowly gearing up for the apogee of his act: his transformation into a Halloween approximation of the late Elvis Presley, here to bless the nuptial pair.
“Don’t tell me these idiots are going to be INTO this,” he thinks. “Let’s just get it over with so I can pocket the extra hundred bucks, and they can get back to their curling bonspiels.”
True to form, though, ‘Fat Elvis’ has a spectacular meltdown, which culminates in… Well, let’s just say it culminates in a fully costumed near-recreation of the King’s last moments on earth, in an open bathroom stall with a few drunken onlookers as witnesses. Elvis, however, suffered from constipation. Vicar does not.
This happens on page 10, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I was dreading having to spend another 228 pages in the company of this flatulent boor. But things get better.
In fact, they get better the next morning, when ‘Hungover Elvis’ wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, with an unfamiliar but very lovely body beside him. Enter Caoilfhoinn Jacqueline O’Neil, aka Jacquie O, the bartender from the night before and a former stripper with, we soon come to realize, a heart of gold. She’s the deus in this machina, the goddess who lets Vicar reclaim his long-lost sense of wonder and, ultimately, redeem himself as both a human being and a man.
Soon he’s gainfully employed, albeit at a liquor store. He starts performing selfless acts of kindness for his elderly customers. With Jacquie’s charm and computer-savvy help, he drags his hapless and odiferous boss, Ross Poutine, into the 21st century. And, most remarkably, he seemingly wills the victim of an automobile collision back from certain death, a miracle that soon brings him Internet fame, more responsibility than he’s really ready to handle and a ravishing but utterly amoral female stalker.
Did we mention that The Liquor Vicar is a romp? Even at its darkest, Ditrich’s novel maintains that lighthearted edge: its villains and their schemes are harebrained, and when they get their comeuppance the tool of their destruction is a bong, wielded in a decidedly unconventional manner. Ditrich also provides just enough foreshadowing that, by book’s end, you’ll be glad to know that a sequel is already in the works.
Hopefully it’ll be out by next June, just in time for summer reading.
There’s more, though. Underneath the terrible puns, the unlikely coincidences, and the perpetually puzzling question of what, exactly, Jacquie sees in Tony, The Liquor Vicar has a large and generous heart. It’s probably useful to know that Ditrich was the long-time drummer with popular Vancouver folk-rock band Spirit of the West, an act that successfully managed to combine dance-floor friendly melodies with an activist spirit. In the past few years, Ditrich had to witness Spirit’s universally adored front man, John Mann, contract and ultimately die from an aggressive form of early onset dementia. And he’s had health issues of his own: in 2016 Ditrich successfully received a kidney transplant after suffering from kidney disease for several years.
“The situation has even one more miraculous wrinkle,” he reported on Facebook at the time. “My nephew gave up his kidney to some anonymous recipient so that I could in turn receive an anonymous kidney from someone else. This daisy chain of generosity humbles me to my core.”
So, in Ditrich’s world miracles really do happen. We can save lives just by being compassionate and good. Hope exists. Some of that spirit percolates through this book, and if you can get past its unpromising introduction, you may very well find yourself cheered at a time when cheer has never been more welcome. 9781459747258
Alexander Varty is a musician and writer living on unceded Snuneymuxw territory.
In the sequel, The Vicar’s Knickers (Dundurn $19.99) Tony Vicar is still famous. He still lives in Tyee Lagoon. His girlfriend Jacquie is still with him. Only now, he has turned his attention to renovating an old hotel he has inherited and converting the shabby beer parlour into a lavish pub that he names -- wait for it -- the Vicar's Knickers. There are unforeseen challenges, like the gossip columnist, Richard X. Dick intent on undermining Vicars. And then a surprise is left on Vicar's doorstep one night.
Vince R. Ditrich is the drummer and manager of the band Spirit of the West. He has earned more than a dozen gold and platinum albums, and been enshrined in several Halls of Fame. He lives on Vancouver Island.
BOOKS:
The Liquor Vicar (Dundurn, 2021) $18.99 9781459747258
The Vicar’s Knickers (Dundurn, 2022) $19.99 97814597472289
[BCBW 2022]
*
REVIEW
By Alexander Varty
Romp, the nearest dictionary at hand informs me, is “a song, play, etc. that is lively, energetic, and lighthearted.” It can also be “a playful and lighthearted journey or excursion,” as well as “an easy victory.”
By any of those definitions, Vince R. Ditrich’s debut novel, The Liquor Vicar, is indeed a romp. It’s comical, engrossing, and even uplifting—but, dear reader, it does not open well.
After a brief prologue, we’re immediately introduced to the outer persona and inner thoughts of the novel’s namesake and protagonist, Tony Vicar, and he is not in a good mood. In fact, he’s seething. A faded rock ’n’ roll guitarist who’s been reduced to deejaying in run-down Vancouver Island bars, he’s currently sound-tracking the wedding of a “meathead” at “the world’s oldest Eagles Hall.” He’s also sucking back beer at an alarming rate, washing it down with slugs of emergency Scotch and slowly gearing up for the apogee of his act: his transformation into a Halloween approximation of the late Elvis Presley, here to bless the nuptial pair.
“Don’t tell me these idiots are going to be INTO this,” he thinks. “Let’s just get it over with so I can pocket the extra hundred bucks, and they can get back to their curling bonspiels.”
True to form, though, ‘Fat Elvis’ has a spectacular meltdown, which culminates in… Well, let’s just say it culminates in a fully costumed near-recreation of the King’s last moments on earth, in an open bathroom stall with a few drunken onlookers as witnesses. Elvis, however, suffered from constipation. Vicar does not.
This happens on page 10, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I was dreading having to spend another 228 pages in the company of this flatulent boor. But things get better.
In fact, they get better the next morning, when ‘Hungover Elvis’ wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, with an unfamiliar but very lovely body beside him. Enter Caoilfhoinn Jacqueline O’Neil, aka Jacquie O, the bartender from the night before and a former stripper with, we soon come to realize, a heart of gold. She’s the deus in this machina, the goddess who lets Vicar reclaim his long-lost sense of wonder and, ultimately, redeem himself as both a human being and a man.
Soon he’s gainfully employed, albeit at a liquor store. He starts performing selfless acts of kindness for his elderly customers. With Jacquie’s charm and computer-savvy help, he drags his hapless and odiferous boss, Ross Poutine, into the 21st century. And, most remarkably, he seemingly wills the victim of an automobile collision back from certain death, a miracle that soon brings him Internet fame, more responsibility than he’s really ready to handle and a ravishing but utterly amoral female stalker.
Did we mention that The Liquor Vicar is a romp? Even at its darkest, Ditrich’s novel maintains that lighthearted edge: its villains and their schemes are harebrained, and when they get their comeuppance the tool of their destruction is a bong, wielded in a decidedly unconventional manner. Ditrich also provides just enough foreshadowing that, by book’s end, you’ll be glad to know that a sequel is already in the works.
Hopefully it’ll be out by next June, just in time for summer reading.
There’s more, though. Underneath the terrible puns, the unlikely coincidences, and the perpetually puzzling question of what, exactly, Jacquie sees in Tony, The Liquor Vicar has a large and generous heart. It’s probably useful to know that Ditrich was the long-time drummer with popular Vancouver folk-rock band Spirit of the West, an act that successfully managed to combine dance-floor friendly melodies with an activist spirit. In the past few years, Ditrich had to witness Spirit’s universally adored front man, John Mann, contract and ultimately die from an aggressive form of early onset dementia. And he’s had health issues of his own: in 2016 Ditrich successfully received a kidney transplant after suffering from kidney disease for several years.
“The situation has even one more miraculous wrinkle,” he reported on Facebook at the time. “My nephew gave up his kidney to some anonymous recipient so that I could in turn receive an anonymous kidney from someone else. This daisy chain of generosity humbles me to my core.”
So, in Ditrich’s world miracles really do happen. We can save lives just by being compassionate and good. Hope exists. Some of that spirit percolates through this book, and if you can get past its unpromising introduction, you may very well find yourself cheered at a time when cheer has never been more welcome. 9781459747258
Alexander Varty is a musician and writer living on unceded Snuneymuxw territory.
